A shared vision of enterprise social networking drives Microsoft's ongoing integration of Yammer
with SharePoint
2013. But it's not just enterprise social networking at play, said Jared Spataro, senior
director of Microsoft's Office division; it's also a common approach to cloud services and mobile
technology that informs the new mix of enterprise
collaboration and SharePoint content management.

"Every day you walk into the office, things are always changing," Spataro said, "and mobile,
social and cloud are part of the way you are going to have to respond." The Yammer integration was
coming at a "pivotal moment" in the way business was being done across all industries, he said.

Different SharePoint
users react in different ways to Microsoft's
acquisition of Yammer and what it means for SharePoint. For his part, Spataro called the
inclusion of Yammer in the Microsoft fold a blending of its document-centric history with Yammer's
user-centric approach. Technology is going to enable organizations to differentiate themselves from
the competition in increasingly meaningful ways, he said, and Yammer's integration would help
ensure Microsoft's customers can do just that. It wasn't just the Yammer enterprise social platform
that would aid in the process -- Yammer's overall approach to software development would also be
valuable to Microsoft SharePoint
content management and collaboration, he added.

Learn more about SharePoint content management and collaboration

"We're sort of bringing together these two customer worlds," said Adam
Pisoni,chief technology officer at Yammer and general manager of engineering in the
Microsoft Office division. While Microsoft's strengths with enterprise software mean the company
has a solid reputation with IT departments, Yammer has developed strong relationships with business
divisions, he said.

"And to be successful, we kind of need both these [groups of] people on board," Pisoni said.
"This isn't about social as a destination; it's about social as a common fabric across all these
applications."

Pisoni and Spataro agreed to talk
about the Yammer integration and how the Yammer team will help Microsoft in its social, cloud
and mobile developments during an interview at the SharePoint Conference 2012 in Las Vegas last
November. The two explained that as the company integrates Yammer into its Office products,
Microsoft also views its forays into mobile and cloud
as representative of a new direction in software development.

Aside from the oft-cited benefits of cost and resource savings that Software
as a Service and Platform as a Service bring to organizations, cloud services are able to
"really deliver value more quickly in a more measured way," Pisoni said. That means users can focus
on the new capabilities they offer, he said. In support of that what?, Spataro indicated that an
initiative within Microsoft was well under way to move from the traditional three-year software
cycle to sending out SharePoint content management, as well as other Office updates, every 90
days.

The SharePoint 2013 integration with Yammer and with Microsoft's cloud services means "you can
really focus on very high-value work, very high-value objectives," Spataro said, "and you have to
invest in that as a company."

Here's what viewers of this 13.5-minute video will learn:

How IT can help generate direct business results

How Yammer and Microsoft will work together and where their collaboration emphasis comes
from

Where the difference between coordination and collaboration lies, and how that collaboration
represents a big shift in the way organizations do business

That technology is the easy part -- that the difficulty lies in making organizational changes
to make more efficient use of technology

Tip - SharePoint Online can reduce costs and ease management headaches, but not without a few functionality tradeoffs. Companies should be familiar with shortcomings before making the move into the cloud.

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